Temporary Hoop-Coop for a Maine Winter€¦ · Temporary Hoop-Coop for a Maine Winter A versatile growing structure to house livestock, equipment, or to extend your growing season

Runamuk Acres Farm & Apiary runamukacres.com Hoop-Coop Step-by-Step

Temporary Hoop-Coop for a Maine Winter

A versatile growing structure to house livestock, equipment, or to extend your

growing season. This “hoop-coop” is quick and easy to construct, and well worth the

investment. Simply leaving off the chicken-wire turns this structure into a mini high-

tunnel that can be used for growing a wide variety of vegetables. Using a tarp instead of

greenhouse film, you could use this hoop-house as a sheep-shed or a tool-shed. So many

options!

Features and Benefits of this Design

• Simple construction

• Can be built with hand-tools

• Mostly a 1-person job

• Relatively inexpensive to construct

• Sheds snow well

• Versatile structure for multiple uses

• Space for 30-40 birds*

• Tall enough to stand/work inside

• Birds are under sunlight ALL DAY

• Moveable**

• Can attach other equipment to the

wooden frame (ie: nesting boxes)


Materials & Tools List

Tools Needed:

• Cordless drill

• Handsaw

• Hammer

• Sawhorses

• Pencil

• Carpenter’s square

• Wire cutters

• Staple gun & staples

• PVC glue

Material Qty Source Indv. Price My Cost

2” x 6” x 12' 4 Home Depot $7.26ea $29.04

2” x 4” x 16' 2 Home Depot $6.55ea $13.10

2” x 4” x 10' 10 Home Depot $4.13ea $41.30

1" x 3" x 12' 6 Home Depot $2.62ea $15.72

1” x 2” x 8' 2 Home Depot $3.86 $7.72

4" screws 8 screws Home Depot $8.47/box $8.47

2" screws 1lb On hand $0.00 $0.00

PVC Straps 10 (2pkgs/5) Home Depot $3.57ea $7.14

Snap clamps for 1"

PVC

10 (1pkg) Johnny's Selected

Seeds

$7.30/pkg $4.38*

1" PVC Schedule

40 Conduit (grey)

10 Home Depot $3.46ea $34.60

Tufflite IV

greenhouse film

20x65 Johnny's Selected

Seeds

$177.00 $99.00*

Chicken wire 48" x 50' Tractor Supply Co $33.99 $33.99

Screened door with

hinges

1 Scavenged $0.00 $0.00

Wooden laths 1 Bundle Campbell's

Building Supply

$12.85 $12.85

Small nails (ie-

shingle nails)

1lb On hand $0.00 $0.00

Washers** 6 Home Depot $0.22ea $1.32

*As an employee I have a nice discount with Johnny's; I also waited to buy my plastic when it was on

sale during Johnny's winter-prep sale.

**With a small enough center hole that your screw won't go through.



Step-by-Step Instructions

Preparations

Step 1: Go shopping ahead of time for materials not

already on-hand (In my world, “shopping” can include

scavenging for pieces in the barn or garage or

collecting free stuff from the side of the road.). Gather

everything in one spot. Schedule at least one whole

day to complete this project.

Set Up & Begin with the Frame

Step 2: When the day comes to tackle this project haul

it all out to your construction site and set up your

sawhorses. Begin by cutting 2 of your 2x6 boards to 8-feet long each. Always remember

to measure twice and cut once! And save those leftover pieces, you never know when

you might need a 4-foot length of lumber!!!

Step 3: Assemble the base of your structure

using the 2 8-foot boards, the 2 12-foot boards

and the 4-inch screws. Make sure to attach

your boards the same way at either end (ie -

the 8-foot board on the inside of the 12-foot

boards). You should have a rectangle when

finished. See figure 2.

*I tend to pre-drill my screws a lot when

working on a project like this. I find it saves

me a lot of hassle and muscle, especially when

working alone. Figure 2: Assembled frame laid out where you

want your coop to be located. Ground-work for

the site should be done ahead of time.

Figure 1: If you can get materials

free or at a discounted rate, by all

means do so!


Rails & Hip-Boards

Step 4: Next, measure out 36-inch lengths of 2x4 lumber. You'll need 6 of these to be

the rails that you'll attach your hip-board to.

Step 5: On the long-side of your 2x6 frame, measure 12-inches from each of the outside

corners and make a bold mark on the lumber. Then measure the distance between the

two marks and find the middle point; make another mark on your 2x6 frame. This is

where you will affix your rails. Do the same on the other side.

Step 6: I didn't want my rails to be flush with the bottom of the frame, so I used a small

2-inch board to lay on the ground against the inside of the frame where I wanted each

rail positioned. Then I rested the rail on that while I sunk 3 screws into each piece to

connect them to the frame.

Step 7: No cutting involved to attach your hip-boards; simply position your 12-foot 2x4

alongside the rails and attach with your 2.5-inch screws.

*Here I recruited the help of my 13-year old son to help hold the hip-board up while I

screwed that to the rails on each side.

Bring on the hoops!

Step 8: Lay your tape measure out across the top of one of the 12-foot hip boards and

make marks 3-inches in from each end. Your hoops will line up with these marks. With

your tape measure still laid out on the board,

evenly space the other 3 hoops.

Now attach the straps to the inside of the hip-

board, with the strap on-center with the mark on

your hip-board.

Step 9: You'll need to connect 2 lengths of the

grey utility pipe into one 20-foot long section. Use

some PVC glue to prevent them from ever slipping apart and wrap each one where the 2

Figure 3: Wrap the spot where your

conduit connects with duct tape.


pipes come together to prevent any sharp plastic edges from cutting up your greenhouse

film. See figure 3.

Step 10: Next insert one end into the first bracket and slowly pull the other end over

your head and across to the opposite side. Slide it down through the bracket. Do this 4

more times with the other pipes until you have something that looks like figure 4.

Step 11: Drive a screw through the pipe about an

inch from the end to fasten it to the 2x6 frame

and lend added stability to the hoop. See figure 5.

Structural Reinforcement

Step 12: Cut 2 lengths to re-enforce the corners

and the hip-boards. These cuts were a little tricky

for me because they involved measuring and cutting at an angle. Measure 48-inches and

then mark out a 45° angle on either end.

Figure 5: Drill a screw through the conduit

to attach it to the 2x6 frame and give the

hoops some added stability.

Figure 4: Hoops added to a basic support structure.


Step 13: Screw these pieces in place at the end that is designated "the back" of the

coop. They should connect the 2x6 to the hip-board. See figure 6.

Frame in the ends

Step 14: Run a 10-foot 2x4 across “the back” connecting the two hip-boards (this is

your “back-board”), and then a 7.5-foot 2x4 straight up and

down connected to the base and the back-board with 3 screws

each.

*You could modify the design to include a door at either end,

or door on one end and window on the other. The choice is

yours.

Step 15: On the “front” mount the door-frame: this was made

up of two 6.5-foot 2x4s mounted vertically in the center of

that end, far enough apart that my 36-inch-wide screen door

would fit snugly between them. Add a 32-inch length of 2x4

from the hip-board to the door-frame, and then a 4-foot length

across the top of the door. Use the 1x3s cut to 21 and 33-

inches to connect the corners so that I would have a place to

Rails, hip-boards, hoops and structural supports have been added to the

hoop-coop project. Add the door when you frame in the ends.

Figure 7: Frame in the

front end so that you have

somewhere to tack the

chicken wire and plastic.

Figure 6: The frame with the added structural supports, hoops, and a door.


tack the chicken wire and plastic when I closed in the ends. See figure 7.

Step 16: Add the door.

Putting on the Chicken Wire (optional)

Note: If you're not using this structure to house chickens or livestock that need

additional protection from predators, you can simply leave off the chicken-wire.

Step 17: If you intend this structure to house a chicken flock, run chicken wire around

the inside of the frame along the rails and the hip boards and staple it in place with your

staple gun. Tack chicken wire onto the frame of the back wall, and to the frame

surrounding the door on the front wall. Our door was a screen-door that had been

reclaimed from a former chicken-coop, so it already had a piece of 1/8th inch wire mesh

tacked to it, make sure your door is also predator proof.

Note: We were super careful to fold the chicken wire down,

or to roll it so that it would not be in contact with the

plastic. I was hesitant to simply cut the chicken wire for fear

of the sharp wires near my expensive greenhouse film, so we

opted to roll the chicken wire in the spots where it was an

issue, which seemed to be mostly in the upper corners of

each end wall.

Further, to keep out predators I also recommend you either

cover the floor of this structure with wire-mesh (1/2-inch is

preferable, but 1x2 has worked ok for us so far), or dig a

trench at least 12-inches deep around the inside of the base

of your frame and lay wire-mesh all the way around and

tack the top of it to the 2x6 frame. See figure 8.

Figure 8: Predator-proof your

hoop-house if you intend to

keep livestock in it.


Cutting the Plastic

Step 18: The tufflite IV greenhouse film comes neatly folded and carefully rolled inside

a long cardboard box that resembles a large box of plastic wrap. Roll out 16-feet, which

allows for a 2-foot overhang on either end of the tunnel, and since it would unfold to be

20-feet wide there was plenty to go over the top of the hoops.

Putting the Plastic on

Step 19: The easiest way we found to put the plastic on was to fold that 16-foot section

of folded plastic twice, until it was one fat, long length that was about 4-feet wide. We

stood inside in the middle of the hoop-coop and fed first one side of the plastic up and

over three hoops, and then the other side up and over remaining 2 hoops. Then, standing

at opposite ends we unfolded the plastic so that one half draped down over one side of

the hoops, and the other half draped down the other side. You may find a different

method that works better for you.

Pulling it tight across the top, we used 3 snap clamps on the hoop at either end to secure

the plastic in the event a sudden gust of wind should try to snatch the plastic away.

Secure the sides

Step 20: With a12-foot 1x3 for each side, lay them out at the base of the frame and then

wrapped the edge of the plastic around the 1x3, rolling it so that all of the edges are even

and the plastic is smooth. Wrap the plastic around the 1x3 several times, then take a

washer and a screw and attach the 1x3

with its plastic sheathing to the 2x6

frame along the ground. The washer

prevents the screw from tearing

through the plastic by spreading the

pressure out over a broader surface.

See figure 9. Figure 9: We used washers and screws to affix the

plastic to the structure.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/tools-supplies/tufflite-iv-greenhouse-film---20-x-65-9630.html#q=tufflite&start=1


You only need 3 to hold the thing in place. Then do the same on the other side, but this

time, once you have your 1x3 wrapped neatly in plastic, pull it out away from the

structure to make sure the whole piece is taught and smooth all the way over and across,

and then screw it to the frame in the same manner as the first─ with screws and washers.

It should look like the structure in figure 10 when this step is completed.

Closing the Ends

Step 21: Carefully cut pieces of plastic and staple them over

the chicken-wire walls at either end, securing them firmly to

the framing with laths and roofing nails. You will have to cut

or break some of the laths to size to fit the frame neatly. See

figure 11.

Figure 10: Plastic on the hoop-coop and pinned on either side along the

base of the frame (the milk crate was my stool so that I could reach the to

pull the plastic tight!).

Figure 11: Closing in the

ends for the winter.


Step 22: Finally, pull the

overhang from the over the top

of the end-frame and attach that

with laths. See figure 12.

Hooray you have a temporary hoop-coop!

Fit for the Birds

Step 23: Add necessary furniture for chickens: roosts, nesting boxes, feed & water.

Now you're ready for the birds!

Figure 12: Attaching the top to the end-walls.

Documents

Temporary Hoop-Coop for a Maine Winter€¦ · Temporary Hoop-Coop for a Maine Winter A versatile growing structure to house livestock, equipment, or to extend your growing season